


This Time

by amtrak12



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:25:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8189896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: There's an ease Abby can't find with Erin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I love yatesbert angst, this one actually bothers me. I'm going to have to write some fluff to make up for it.

There's an ease Abby can't find with Erin. The team as a whole melds together perfectly with few dramatics. Patty still frets over the safety of the lab equipment; Holtzmann still needles and pokes at Erin, but as a unit, they really can't work any better together. Abby is thrilled and damn proud to have such a team.

If only her relationship with Erin could be just as smooth. Abby feels like she's walking a tightrope around her, and the worst part is she can't tell if Erin is walking it with her, if she's already jumped off, or if she never even started walking down it to begin with.

Because Erin has left -- twice -- and returned -- twice -- and recklessly jumped into a ghost portal to pull her out (that rope was good thinking), and Abby just doesn't know what that means anymore.

_I wasn't going to leave you twice._

She said, along with:

_I think we can actually do this_

along with:

_I'll call you._

_I'm so glad I have you._

_We'll be best friends forever, right?_

_I can't believe you care about ghosts as much as I do. That's amazing!_

But the thing about Erin is what she says means far less than what she doesn't.

_This isn't enough._

_I'm leaving._

_I'm too scared of people laughing at me._

_I can't do this._

Abby watches her move around their new headquarters day in and day out. She sees her plan outings with Patty, watches her eyes light up when they discover a mutual love for Joni Mitchell. She watches her learn to push back against Holtzmann's jabs -- not with a brick wall of defense, but with steely jabs of her own (they're usually completely pedantic and ridiculously lame but they make Holtz grin bigger and even offer a high five after one particularly quick-witted retort).

Abby sees all of this and instead of feeling settled by how well Erin is connecting with their team, she feels scared. Terrified.

Because she's learned through one of the hardest experiences of her life that Erin leaves. And that not only does she leave, but that she does so without warning or good-byes.

Patty doesn't know it. Holtzmann doesn't understand it, has never truly absorbed what Abby has told her over the years. Because Holtz can't wrap her head around something so unresolved. Holtz, in all her joking around, still only deals with concrete absolutes. If Erin walks out the way she did twenty years ago, without explanation, without a final word, then Holtz will always be expecting her to come back.

It twists Abby's stomach up inside to think about. To remember how unconcerned Patty and Holtzmann were after Erin took off to convince her former colleagues at Columbia that ghosts were real (and then took off again when they tossed her out the door). "She just needs time to cool off. She'll be alright," Patty said, not realizing 'time to cool off' means 'time alone', means Erin has more freedom and opportunity to leave.

And Holtz, _god _. "I'm so goddamn happy you two are back together again." She watched Erin walk out the very next day, and still she sidles up to Abby now and remarks on how fun it is to see what a huge nerd Erin is up close, or asks for Erin's favorite color because she's experimenting with shock-absorbent polymers to add to the back of the proton packs that will cushion their falls without over-heating the nuclear coils, and she's dyeing Patty's pink and thought Erin would want a color too. "But it can't be yellow. Or orange. Or green. The yellow dye doesn't mix well with the polymer. It'll burn a hole right through your skin."__

__They're going to be blindsided when (if... if...) Erin leaves again, and there's nothing Abby can do about it. She can't even prepare herself for the eventual exit because she wants Erin to stay so badly, she's ended up hoping against reason that she will. That this time Erin's words matter more than her silences; that this time their work and their friendship are enough._ _

__That this time she will stay._ _

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @amtrak12


End file.
